Finding Riley
by nyahchatnoir
Summary: High school is a hard for any teenager, but for Riley Anderson, this is the understatement of a lifetime. All she wants is to make a change, but in order to do so she must first come to terms with herself. Though there are sure to be a few bullies on the way, Riley will always have her emotions behind her, even if she doesn't know it. Thus, the life of a butchandrogyne transgender.
1. The Cut

**All of the characters from Inside Out belong to Disney & Pixar. I own absolutely nothing from the franchise. Nada, zero, zip. The only thing that I own is the plot-line and the clothes on my back. Anyways, this will probably be a kind of emotional short story. Only a couple of chapters at the most. Please enjoy!**

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Riley Anderson grew up as a relatively normal child… Well, as normal as any tomboy from Minnesota could ever hope to grow in a crowded city like San Francisco, California.

She was fun and adventurous. Sometimes she cried and sometimes she was a bit selfish, but overall she was a kind girl who loved to live on the wild side, even if she was a bit too cautious whenever she really needed to be. Her sense of fear and daring were always seeming to be at war with one another. The girl loved laughing. She also had a miniscule temper, but her emotions were usually pretty well balanced, especially when her joy always managed to take hold of the reigns. Basically, for the most part, Riley's life was fine.

To start, the girl kept a great relationship with her parents. She cared for them, and she could tell that they both loved her with all of their heart. The constant hugs and taking care of her whenever she was sick was undoubtedly enough for her to understand that fact without her ever having to take everything else that they had done for her throughout the years into account. It was obvious that Riley came from a great home life. Even to a complete stranger, it was easy to say that Riley was happy, and truthfully, her parents made her very happy.

Secondly, the teen was essentially liked by her peers. No, the girl was far from being popular, but she was not hated either, and a few of her teachers even loved having her as a student. She had always been a very inquisitive and helpful girl in the classroom, always willing to lend a hand whenever someone needed help. This, much to her own happiness, was all thanks to the tiny little emotion named Joy who lived inside Riley's head. Still, unfortunately for Riley, her crying spell from about five years ago had accomplished in leaving behind a small stain on her reputation, but sure enough, the teen was unwilling to let that stop her cheer from bouncing back to its regular level. Besides, Joy would never allow that.

Of course, unknown to the aging sixteen year old, Riley held a whole squad of emotions in her head who cared about her more than anything in the whole world. To them, nothing in the entire universe could even _hope_ to hold a candle to what they thought of Riley. She was their pride and joy. The five emotions: Anger, Sadness, Disgust, Fear, and Joy; all of them only lived for the sake of keeping Riley stable. She was their life, and the emotions felt devoted to her. All of them wanted to be able to take care of Riley, but the emotions were each only capable of caring for her in their own unique way, which required the work of each of them separately.

But yes, all of the emotions would help Riley.

For example, Anger was there to protect Riley's honor and to give her the sass that she needed to be able to make it in a big city. There was also Sadness whose job was to keep Riley sympathetic and, most usually, calm. Disgust aided Riley by navigating her through social circles and helping her choose between things like sneakers or crocks… Definitely not the crocks.

In accordance to the last two emotions, Fear's job was to keep Riley safe, and he did a damn good job, if he said so himself. He was jittery but diligent, and he warned her off from any potential danger, while Joy kept the girl happy and… accidentally put Riley into the various fun, yet possibly dangerous situations that Fear would have to skillfully talk her out of. Nevertheless, even if it was a hard and fulltime job, all five of Riley's emotions wanted to be happy.

This is why when Sadness began to act more moodily than usual, Joy began to worry.

"Um, Sadness?" Joy curiously called to the blue emotion.

From her stance at the control panel in Headquarters, the much brighter emotion watched on in a slight mixture of hurt and confusion, as the round emotion began to mope around their workspace, moaning and groaning pitifully as she walked. Sadness had been acting like this for the past few weeks now.

It was this evening while Riley was simply hanging out in her bedroom that Sadness fell down to the ground face first and started slinking depressingly like a snail across the floor. As she crept, her voice mumbled for a moment, and the sound of it reverberated back to all of the other occupants in the small console room. Each of the emotions turned to stare down at the blue emotion with varying degrees of interest; the green emotion simply rolling her eyes at Sadness's dramatics. She airily let out a disgusted scoff.

There came a lengthy breath of silence, before Sadness finally spoke.

"I'm in distress," the sad emotion moaned, craning her neck to glance up at the other emotions.

Joy immediately ran over to her and stooped down beside her limp body, "Sadness, what's wrong?"

"I feel sad, but even more so than I usually do."

Sadness's gaze traveled down, and her shoulders drooped against the floor.

For a second time, her face hit the ground beneath her with a dull thud. Staring at her in mild worry, Joy quickly brightened herself and carefully positioned her friend to where Sadmess was laying on her back facing her. The taller emotion stared down at her with a question in her gaze.

Sadness immediately took in a deep breath.

Staring up into Joy's eyes, the bluer emotion felt her heart break, and her eyes instantly edged with tears. Eventually, she opened her mouth and whispered, "I feel repressed. I don't know why, but I do. I feel like crying Joy."

"Aww, hey. There's no need to cry."

Joy bent in her knees and reached over to softly rub her friend's arm back and forth from her place above her. A soothing tone left the joyful emotion, as she glanced over her shoulder at the monitor and saw that Riley was now contentedly laying on her bed. A book was in her hands, a small smile graced Riley's face. Good, good. Their little girl was still happy.

Looking back to Sadness, Joy patted her once, gently.

"Shhh, shhh. I'm sure that you'll be okay Sadness. It's alright. Seriously, this is nothing but a little emotional spell that you'll soon get over. Riley is fine, and you are fine. Everything is fine, and the melancholy that you're feeling right now will surely pass."

Sadness wiggled on the floor like a depressed worm for a moment, before suddenly leaning up. Her eyes still twinkled with the remnants of her tears, as she slowly picked herself up from the ground. Joy leant back a step, allowing her friend some room. A mournful smile forced its way on Sadness's face.

"You're right Joy. I'm sure it will pass-"

Once Sadness was back on her feet, the blue emotion waddled her way across the room toward the middle of Headquarters and stopped behind Riley's emotion board. It was as she stepped up to the glowing console that a sudden light appeared on the panel, leaving behind a small, orange-colored switch.

Sadness turned to Joy, giving her a defiant stare.

"-But just like you, I understand what I am doing. I also know what is best for Riley and right now, Riley just needs to feel sad."

Before Joy could even register what was happening, Sadness flipped up the tiny switch and an alarm started to blare in the room, coercing the glowing emotion to hop off of the ground in anger. Having witnessed it all, Fear commenced to run in circles while the lights in Headquarters suddenly began to flicker on and off. Screaming, he ran across the room, panicking audibly as he accidentally loped himself straight into a wall. A few feet away from him Anger stood motionless, and his gaze darted warily in trepidation around the room. Standing off to the side, Disgust crossed her arms in disdain at the chaotic scene and let out a thin noise of contempt, quietly brooding with an annoyed expression on her face.

"What did you do?" Joy angrily yelled.

The dimming emotion ran as fast as she could toward the control panel, pushing Sadness out of the way as she inspected the control panel. Her large blue eyes turned upward to stare into the screen of Riley's mind's eye. The tiny emotion's heart broke.

On the screen, Joy saw Riley staring miserably at her reflection in the mirror. An unhappy glint entered her icy blue gaze, and a miserable expression settled on the girl's ever-beautiful and young features. Joy could only blink, watching the screen in regret. If only she had been faster…

Joy watched as the girl frowned further, suddenly reaching up to finger at the yellow tips of her long blonde locks. The teen's brows furrowed in anger. Her hair had gotten much longer in the recent years.

"Sadness, what did you do to Riley?"

The emotion in question could only gape at the screen in front of them, before turning to look Joy in the eye. Her face suddenly scrunched up into a painfully muddled look.

"I-I don't know. All I know is that it needed to be done. I don't know how, or why I flipped it; all I know is that I had to. Whatever happens to her now, please know that Riley _needed_ this."

For the second time in her life, the only other time being when Bing Bong had sacrificed himself for the two of them and Riley, Joy felt the need to cry. She had succeeded in keeping her little girl happy for so long, and yet now Riley was looking at herself with such a disappointed stare. It was like she now hated what she saw; like she was an entirely different person.

But this person was still Riley. Surely, she was still _their_ Riley.

Anger let out a sudden grumble, irritably watching the screen from his spot. Both Sadness and Joy stared, as he quickly came stomping up from behind them, grunting for them to move out of the way. When they did so, the red emotion's hands immediately took hold of the controls.

"I don't know why, but this hair is _gone_!"

He swiftly began pressing buttons and sent down a request for a memory. As the correct memory came rolling in to Headquarters, Anger reached for the orb and threw it into the air, projecting the image of a pair of scissors that Riley had seen earlier on her dresser.

Joy immediately gasped.

"Anger you can't do that! But this is Riley's hair! Her beautiful, soft, amazing, and gorgeous…"

Her voice trailed off, as she saw Riley pick up the pair of scissors through the screen. A panicked feeling settled in her gut when she witnessed Riley begin to walk back toward her mirror.

Joy ran over to Anger in an attempt to pull him away.

"No, you can't do this!"

The yellow emotion tugged on him, desperately gazing between the screen and her hands, which were doing nothing to help her.

"Don't Anger, stop! Riley loves her hair!"

Joy pulled on him harder, crying out when he deftly shoved her away.

"Why are you doing this to her?"

The emotion pushed on the controls, and a red fire came out of his head. All Joy could do was stare in horror, as Riley watched the long strands fell down to the table in front of her. The deed had been done. A huge gap of empty space now hung where a piece of Riley's hair used to be.

Joy let out an upset whisper, "No… Riley."

Anger smirked triumphantly at his actions, casually pressing a few more buttons on the control panel. A proud laugh left him. Feeling successful, he promptly shook off his hands and looked down at Joy on the floor beside him. A rare grin appeared on his face. The emotion held out a hand for her, calmly pulling her up.

"Sorry Joy, but it's all in a day's work."

Even through his apology, Joy felt completely numb.

The emotion could only stare in revulsion, as Riley continued to furiously chop off the rest of her hair in the mirror. All of the time that she had spent growing it out, wasted. What was wrong with Riley's emotions today?

Joy's heart broke for a second time, witnessing the transformation that was happening in front of her. She watched as Riley idly put down the scissors, reaching up to furiously style her hair until it was in a short, crop cut kind of style, sticking up in every direction. Joy held in her breath as Riley's image in the mirror suddenly paused. The blond girl stared in silent wonder, taking in her new hairdo. She straightened her back and held an arm over her small chest, pulling it in close to her and restraining what little breasts she already had. The length of her hair was short and so unlike her… But it was a start.

Seeing the tiny gleam in Riley's eyes, Joy took a hesitant step toward the console. She stopped, looked back to Riley, and tenderly pressed a button.

Her eyes softened, as an almost satisfied line of a smile appeared on Riley's face in the mirror.

Joy let out a small, wistful sigh at the sight.

"If this is what you want Riley, then I'll let you have it."

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 **Hope you like it so far! Please review if you want more (:**


	2. The Day After

**Okay, so you know how I said that this would probably only be a couple of chapters... well, I think I might have lied. The more I write, the more ideas I get, so I guess we'll just see what happens as the story progresses, because honestly even I don't know. But I'm sure you will all be fine with that. Also, there is a little bit of adult language in this chapter... but you know that this is a T-rated story, so you have all been warned.**

 **Anyways, Inside Out does not belong to me... Yes, I do wish that I owned it, but unfortunately that is impossible. Enjoy! (:**

When Riley walked into the dining room the next morning, she did so with a sick feeling in her gut. Oh, she should have never cut her hair so short. The look that was on her parents' faces only confirmed her feeling.

It was once she saw her parents that a forced grin came upon Riley's lips, although her parents were obviously feeling much less than thrilled.

Her mother could only gasp in surprise. Her dark eyes widened largely, "Riley, _what_ did you do to your hair?"

The raspy quality in her question made Riley feel self-conscious.

"I cut it," came her daughter's unsure answer.

Subconsciously, Riley's arms wrapped around her middle in defense. The young woman chewed on her lip in suspense. True, the teen was growing up, but she was still a minor and living under her parents' roof. She gazed warily across at her parents.

"B-But why?" Riley's father suddenly sputtered.

He stared up at her from his spot at the dining room table and gaped. The expression that was in his eyes was if he did not know her, his dark orbs widening slightly as he continued to take in her new look. The teen tightened her arms around her abdomen. In her father's eyes was a look of confusion and a light distrust. Her eyes speedily turned downward to stare hesitantly at the ground in front of her.

At the expression on her father's face, Riley rapidly felt her own resolve crumbling. She practically could feel her confidence receding into herself.

"I-I don't know," her voice brokenly responded, "I-I guess I just wanted to."

Riley felt her voice drift off, as her father physically shook his head. He stood up quickly from the table looking as if he was suddenly very uncomfortable.

"That is not an answer Riley," her father replied, firmly pushing in his chair behind him.

Mr. Anderson picked up his dishes and authoritively looked over at his wife. He raised a brow at his spouse, slightly edging his eyes in Riley's direction, "You are going to have to take her over by Cindy's Cuts in order for her to get her hair fixed today, Diane."

Riley's mother frowned deeply, just deciding to nod at her husband's request, although a dubious light still shined in her eyes.

Eventually, she said, "Okay, but I won't be able to take her today. I've got too many errands to run, anyway. She will just have to go to school today as it is, and then she will skip school tomorrow so that I can take her. Besides, Cindy's place is far cheaper and less crowded in the morning. I think Riley can handle missing at least _one_ day of school."

A small smile had formed its way onto Riley's mother's face, until it was wiped away clean by her husband's firm response, "Good."

From her stance in front of them, Riley felt utterly ashamed. The teen's gaze lowered dejectedly. She swallowed down her embarrassment and muttered a sad "sorry", before quickly turning away from them. She did not care, as a few tears edged at the corners of her stormy blue eyes.

The young woman could not explain her actions to her parents. The pair of former Minnesotans would never be able to understand why she did it, especially when she was unable to understand it herself. All that she had known at the moment was that she thought it needed to be done; that her hair should be cut. The looks on her parent's faces could almost bring tears to her eyes, but her parents would never know the sudden hate which had taken over her heart yesterday. The anger that she had felt was too real; the sadness only seeming to weigh down her heart like an anvil. For a moment, dark thoughts had plagued her mind. They had broken her, chipped at her soul, and no joy could be found. She had been sinking within herself, suddenly plagued by a heart wrenching depression, and the only action that could have saved her at the moment was cutting her hair. That was the only thing which had kept her from fully drowning, and so, she had gotten angry and used the scissors.

Now, she looked more like a boy than a girl, and that was what upset her father.

Having turned away from her parents, Riley simply felt as evil as the young man that she had witnessed on CNN the other week, the one who had entered a small public middle school and shot five children; despicable, sinful, and malicious. The teen felt like a monster.

Closing her eyes tightly, Riley listened to the heartbreaking sound of footsteps, as her father suddenly stormed off. He had left her mother sitting quietly at the table.

It was a long and painful moment of silence before Mrs. Anderson finally spoke to her daughter.

"My only question is… Why, Riley?"

The blonde tightened her arms a second time around her abdomen. Panicking, she lifted her gaze and took a step forward.

"I'm sorry," was her repeated whisper, as she tearfully ran away from her mother.

Diane stood up from her seat, but said nothing into the surrounding silence. She watched as Riley hopped into her bedroom and deftly locked the door behind her.

Mrs. Anderson's heart broke for her little monkey, but she allowed her daughter some space after having to deal with her father's actions. Seriously, what had gotten into her daughter? But more important than that, what had gotten into her very caring and especially devoted husband? The brunette's brow furrowed in worry, and she tiredly reached up to rub at her forehead. She could already feel a headache approaching.

Though she did not know what was wrong with her daughter, the woman was determined to find out soon… Very soon, indeed, and hopefully before her family fell apart.

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Snickers followed her.

Everywhere that Riley went, people talked. Students pointed at her hair. Some even whispered behind their hands, while others blatantly expressed their dislike of her appearance, a few even going so far as to verbally tease her.

"Hey Riley," one boy had irritatingly called, "Did you get in a fight yesterday, or what?"

To which a girl then snootily laughed and said, "Well duh, obviously she fought a cat yesterday… and it looks like the cat won."

It was all beginning to bother her, the taunts and the giggling. The hecklings of her peers were beginning to hurt her almost as much as her father's stare had hurt her earlier that morning. Her bottom lips stuck out in a miniscule pout. As much as she had tried to feign her happiness, the teen's discomfort was starting to show on her expression. Gradually, the jokes began to worsen.

By this point, Joy was physically exhausted. The emotion was figuratively caught between a rock and a sad place, as she tried her hardest to maintain Riley's stability levels. It did not help that the live feed from Riley's mind's eye was steadily giving her a panic attack.

It did not help that beside her, acting like a moody child was Sadness who kept touching the control panel every once in a while, only further bringing down Riley's mood and confidence. Each time Sadness would reach for the controls, Joy would simply swat angrily at the blue emotion. Still, the emotion would eventually manage to push her way through to turn a knob, and she was not Joy's only obstacle.

Every time Sadness would touch a button, Fear would then step up and attempt to take the wheel away from Joy while loudly freaking out, and Joy would have to quickly push him away before he pressed a button. Unfortunately for her, the bright emotion would always miss every time, and Fear would calm himself by making Riley more cautious, however the two of them were severely failing at helping her. All they were successfully doing was making Riley go into a steady, ever-growing state of melancholic jitteriness.

This had Joy furiously screeching out of frustration, "Fear, what the heck are you doing?"

She hurriedly began to turn a crank before she pressed a big yellow button.

The jumpy emotion just wrung his hands nervously and shook like a dog in his shoes, "I'm sorry, but I get _extremely_ trigger happy when I start to feel this anxious, but please don't blame me Joy. Blame those horrible, _horrible_ bullies out there!"

Fear pointed wearily at the screen which showed Riley now looking at a boy who was sniggering at her. Sadness immediately reached from behind Joy to touch the control panel again, but the star managed to swiftly pop her hand hard.

"Down girl!" she ordered.

Joy's eyes immediately trained back onto the screen in front of her, and she felt her shoulders sag in slim defeat. To be honest, the emotion almost felt like not trying, but she would never do that. Leaving Riley for her to go through this on her own was simply not an option. But still, Joy could only irately wonder why these young people were being so mean and crude to their baby girl? What had she ever done to them? The teen had done absolutely nothing but attempt to be more like her true self. Should not everyone try to do that? Why could they not understand that?

In the far corner of Headquarters, Anger stood in a fuming position, currently on an extended time out and hotly facing the wall. With his arms crossed moodily in front on his chest, the pissed off emotion repeatedly banged his head against the wall.

"Dammit, dammit, dammit," he chanted.

Anger took a step back and screamed hatefully up at the sky, "Oh-ho! I know Riley would _SO_ say that one curse word right now, if only Joy would let me-"

"You're doing well over there Anger! Just keep doing what you're doing, let it all out!" Joy airily called over her shoulder, as she pressed a couple more buttons.

Her gaze moved up to watch Riley's mind's eye and she gasped.

"Hey guys, look!" Joy cried.

Disgust looked up from the small compact that she had been admiring herself in and nearly cried at what she saw. Finally, something today that did not disgust her! God, he was so handsome; like a pretty little Adonis. She ran straight over to the control panel beside Joy and pushed down on the large lever as if her life depended on it.

Sparkly green hearts were practically in her eyes.

"Yes, him. I choose him!" she squealed lovingly up to the screen.

Oh, yes. Disgust had chosen the absolute _perfect_ crush for Riley. He was tall and cute, a bit larger than your average size guy, but with a head full of dark, luscious, and fantabulous, amazeballs hair. Damn, she was good.

The rest of the emotions looked up and, for a moment, forgot about Riley's little problem. The lights began to flicker around them like yesterday, except it was red now, and the emotions' eyes all widened in mild wonder at the person they saw through Riley's eyes. Then, Disgust smugly polished her fingernails against her dress as the lights went back to normal, and there came a unanimous nodding from all around, the whole lot of them watching on interest. He was literally one of the most beautiful boys that Riley's emotions had ever seen before.

For a second, everything felt okay for Riley… But then, suddenly everything went wrong.

Observing what was happening on the screen, Fear noticed something out of the corner of Riley's eye, and he felt his heart quicken with fear. He had to stop her, he had to!

As the frazzled emotion rushed over to the control panel, he squealed, "Uh-oh! Danger, _danger_!"

The other emotions blinked, and he jumped toward the controls in his race to beat the clock. Unluckily, gravity threw him onto the ground before he could make it, and now it was too late. He fell onto the floor in agony, mentally cursing his inability to watch her. The deed was done. God, he felt like such a failure for protecting her, and it was in front of her _crush_ no less!

Riley could not believe her eyes when she witnessed him. It was as if a freight train had come and barged into her chest, her heart being flattened by his mere presence. She was mentally floored, and her terrible thoughts from the day suddenly left her, as she carefully made her way across the lunch room floor towards the lunch line. Her eyes were off the grey tiles beneath her. This was when an evil girl with jet black hair sneakily poured out her whole carton of milk, innocently looking away from the mess behind her. The three girls surrounding her snickered conspiringly.

Riley's pupils dilated. It was just as she was registering her sudden extreme interest in the guy, that an ear-piercing scream left her, and her limbs went flying through the air, before she hit the ground with a dull thud. Her butt and parts of her front became drenched in chocolate milk.

Everyone in the cafeteria turned and stared down at the poor girl who sat on the floor in hurt confusion. She looked up, her brows furrowing in pain, and saw the condescending looks that were being sent her way. Hesitantly, she glanced toward the guy that she had been checking out earlier and saw that he was watching the scene with wide eyes. In them, she saw an embarrassing mixture of pity and surprise.

Riley felt her face warm in mortification. Oh god. Her heart simultaneously broke as her body became numb, and she witnessed one of the lunch ladies quickly trot over to help her off the wet floor. Riley almost felt like crying out of self-pity. When she stood, her blue eyes traveled up to the lunch lady's gaze, and she saw sympathy in them. The teen could already tell that her entire back was wet with the stuff.

She could already hear their whispers. The gentle, yet harsh murmur of comments; all that Riley could wonder was what they were saying. Good or bad, at this point it did not matter anymore. The girl's day had been completely ruined by her shitty luck anyway.

The kind woman asked if Riley was okay and placed a hand over her shoulder. As the teen nodded, the woman began to lead her forward and towards the exit of the lunchroom. Riley closed her eyes for a moment when she heard the whispers begin to grow upon her departure. Suddenly, the noise that surrounded her became too loud. All of it became too loud.

Just as her and the lady came upon the lunchroom door, Riley glanced toward the table that the gorgeous boy was sitting at. She nearly felt her heart stop when she witnessed his dark eyes trained on only her, but instantly her heart plummeted, as she saw the boy next to him lean over and whisper something obviously incriminating in his ear. Still, he looked on at her with the same blank stare, and she lowered her gaze in shame, silently being led out the door by the lunch lady.

Once they were standing comfortably outside of the lunchroom, the lunch lady took her hand off of the girl's shoulder and gave her a caring stare.

Softly, she remarked, "Well, that was a nasty fall. You may want to go have your back checked out by the nurse first… Would you like me to lead you on down to the office so that you can call your parents for a new pair of clothes, or do you think that you can handle this-"

As the woman's question hung in the air, Riley looked up from her downtrodden posture and sent her a small smile. Just as soft, yet with a minor hint of pain in her voice, the teen replied, "No, I should be fine… But thank you for your help and the concern."

From inside Riley's mind, Joy could only smile through the tears in her eyes, as the two humans said goodbye to one another. Finally, someone who had showed Riley some kindness today! God, their poor baby girl had been so heartbroken by everyone…

Though Joy was not one for thinking such bad thoughts, it was a good thing that Fear had noticed who the _bitch_ was that purposefully spilled all of her milk on the ground, because now there would definitely be one person added to their newly created list appropriately titled 'A List of People That Riley Hates For No Reason That Includes the Infamous Justin Bieber, As We All Know Why We Hate Him'.

Now, why was this girl being added onto the list? Because their precious girl had not seen the teen pour out the milk, so she currently had no idea that her fall was but a cruel ploy made by a high schooler who thought that it would be fun to humiliate her.

But don't worry Riley, Joy thought to herself, you will _always_ have us with hindsight for you.

As Joy had that thought, Riley stood outside of the lunchroom in a slight reverie, before she shook her head in an attempt to clear her mind. Sadly, she had no idea of what was going on within her head, of the people who cared about her over anyone, well except for Disgust. For her it was only about 50/50... But what could she say? She _was_ a bit vain, after all.

Joy raised her hand. The emotion was just about to make Riley walk down to the front office, before she was rudely knocked out of the way by Sadness who moodily fell over her and face-planted into the keyboard on the control panel. A spark ignited from within the processing board, and Riley suddenly became wracked with a heavy wave of shame and sadness, sniffling quietly.

Joy tried pushing her off, "Ugh, Sadness your blue lard butt-"

She was getting fed up with Riley's emotions today, and she could not wait until it was time for dream duty! That time off; bless it.

Sadness moaned loudly.

"I'm really sorry Joy, but I can't mooove. I'm too saaad from watching Riley to pick myself up," she whined pitifully.

Joy gasped, "Riley!"

There was no telling what Sadness was causing her to do right now!

Joy used all of her strength to throw Sadness off of the controls and hastily picked herself off of the ground. As the lump of pent up emotion fell to the floor with a heavy thud, a quick "sorry" left her lips.

When Joy was finally able to look up at the screen, her eyes expanded in unadulterated horror.

"Oh, no."

Then, the true panic started.

"Oh no, oh no, oh no!"

Joy began pressing buttons, pushing and pulling on everything that she saw in her attempt to bring _any_ kind of emotion out of Riley except for her pure, soul crushing sadness. Having suddenly gotten over his anxiety, Fear was instantly by the emotion's side, nervously fretting over Riley from his spot beside Joy. He fearfully begged her for advice.

"Joy, how do we help Riley? Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! Now she's running away from the school!"

Joy felt the heat of warm tears in her eyes.

When she could not figure out was wrong, she brokenly spoke, "I-I don't know!"

As Joy kept messing with the control panel, her movements becoming more hectic, and another spark flew out from within it. This forced a frustrated sigh to escape the star. From behind her, both Anger and Disgust stared in pronounced alarm.

"W-What's wrong with it?" Disgust yelled, "Ugh, this smoke is disgusting!"

"It's busted!" Anger shouted.

He felt a swell of heat flare up inside of him.

"Nice going Sadness!"

The blue emotion began to sob from her spot on the floor at Joy's feet.

"I'm s-sorry, I c-can't control iiit!"

Fear gasped, throwing his hands up onto his face.

"No. No, this cannot be happening right now!"

He ran around in a tizzy with his heart beating erratically.

"No, n-no it can't be busted! B-Because if it's busted, then we can't help Riley! And if we can't help Riley, then Riley will only feel sadness! And if Riley can only feel sadness, then we cannot help her and she will be joyless and fearless, and the she can really hurt herself-"

Fear ran back to Joy, throwing his arms around her and breathing rapidly as if he was gasping for air.

"Joy! Joy, I can't breathe. I am hyperventilating. Joy, I am hyperventilating!"

Though Joy had felt her heart tug at his squeeze and even enjoyed the embrace for a short moment, she resolvedly shook him off and bent down to her knees in order to check out the circuit board's processing wires. They were smoking from the inside.

Physically shaking from his nerves, Fear stood over her shoulder and watched as she quickly sifted through the wires, carefully moving them with her fingers. He twiddled his own fretfully.

Timidly, he asked, "Do you have any idea what's wrong?"

Joy looked up from the many wires and gave him a frightened stare.

"I-I…" her voice broke off as she turned her gaze to look back through the large colored screen that was laid out in front of them.

The other emotions watched it in trepidation, as Riley made her way off campus, tearfully hiding in a small place, directly between a tall building and a large garbage can. There, they watched as their little girl cried and cried, knowing that her heart was truly breaking because she was incapable of feeling anything else. She could feel no joy; nothing but sadness…

Feeling numb, Joy straightened her lips and gave Fear a hollow stare.

"No Fear, I don't."

* * *

 **Well, I hope that you liked this chapter, and I'm sorry for the new OC... Hopefully you will be able to forgive me. (;**

 **Besides that, I would like to say a BIG thank you to all of the lovely reviewers who left a review for the last chapter. I did not think that so many people would be interested in this story, so I hope that I won't disappoint you, as I am kind of figuring it out as I go tbh... Also, I would like to thank all of the awesome people who favorited/followed this story. You guys rock too! Anyways, I would just be oh, so very grateful if you guys would leave some more kind reviews for me to read. You guys have _no_ idea how much happiness and motivation it gives a writer to know that people like your story. Any-who, sorry for the long message, and I hope to see you later! Bye! ~  
**


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